Writings, pics, music, arts and difficult conversations

Ungrounded

Threat to Our Dream of Living Among Stars

In the concert of nations, Russia holds little sway. That is, if one discounts its nuclear stocks and storied past as a fierce competitor with world power credentials, its influence is now mostly regional. That’s not how President Vladimir Putin sees it, though. So, despite all the hyperventilation about its imperialistic moves against its neighbors, which it never really ceased to control, and the phony indignation displayed by U.S. and Europe, the world doesn’t really care much about it. Except when it comes to space.
Specially, in what the International Space Station, that marvel of global scientific cooperation, is concerned. Aloft for over 10 years, with a steady stream of technological achievements to boot, the flying lab has done more to world harmony that many a peace talk ever could.
That positive outlook is what has been seriously challenged this week when the Russian president issued a not-so veiled threat to bar the launch of American satellites by Russian-made rockets, and even ban the use of the station itself by the U.S. after 2020, which, to be sure, is a qualified ruse.
The ISS hasn’t been projected to be fully operational much beyond that date anyway, and only recently its decommission got a reprieve, as the bitter reality that it’s been reduced to become the only game in town, or rather, space, has sunk in for nations still interested in exploring it, including the U.S.
Which is also at fault in the whole thing, for the record, and not for trying to upset Putin’s campaign to destabilize Ukraine next door. But because the U.S. has withdrawn much of that once unwavering support to its own space program since the last Shuttle left the assembly line.WORLD, WE’VE HAD A PROBLEM HERE
After the great conquests of the 1960s and 70s, NASA, the agency in charge of firing up the imagination of Americans still starstruck, has frankly come up with mediocre plans to follow up the Apollo, the Hubble, the Shuttle programs, and even the ISS, of which it was a crucial contributor.
Instead, lacking the funding and epic ideas needed to go ‘to infinity and beyond,’ to use Buzz Lightyear credo (if you have to ask…), after folding the Shuttle program, NASA decided to count on the aging and unreliable Russian Soyuz rockets, to lift its ambitions to orbit. It couldn’t couldn’t work.
Why? Haven’t you noticed where they all land, and eventually depart from? You’re right, Ukraine. That in itself granted Putin a free ride, and power over the aspirations of millions of Americans who wished we still had a first class ticket towards the future.
The space card was bound to be played also when a misguided bet was placed on the market’s ability to carry our dreams aloft, on board commercial enterprises. For they always come with the hard core conditions of ‘revenue streams,’ the pragmatic cargo profitability factors, and shareholders’ focus on the bottom line.
At the end of the day, for any space program to give back the kind of long-lasting dividends the race to the Moon has given us, it has to be sustained by public funding, the same way education, public health, and infrastructure works are. Private corporations will always place immediate profit ahead of long-term possibility.
So, chances are that the crew of three astronauts from Expedition 39, who landed safe and sound Tuesday in Kazakhstan, won’t be followed by a new one any time soon, at least until things in Ukraine, Crimea and whatever other nearby region Putin is thinking about putting on fire, calm the hell down.BUT WILL WE EVER GO BACK?
Which is, let’s face it, pitiful. After spending six months in space, the least we could’ve told Koichi Wakata, of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Rick Mastracchio, of NASA, and Mikhail Tyurin, of Roscosmos, the Russian Federal Space Agency, would be to please, take a shower and get ready for more.
But we won’t, even if there’s another crew already warming up for the next mission. At this point, we’re all on pins and needles, wondering whether they’ll get to go, or will be sitting this one, and the next, and the next one out, while we, well, try to have peace on Earth, for a change.
It won’t happen, most likely, not the way it’s supposed to be. Even if one believes that we may have our differences and argue a lot, and there are insurmountable woes to deal with on the ground, but when it comes to the big, overarching goals of mankind, we should be all for it, no question, for we still want a future.
There’s another crew, getting ready for a planned one-way trip to Mars. And the idea of retrieving an asteroid and see if we can learn how to divert it, just in case a big rock heads our way, with a nasty declaration of our extinction by fire. And there are many other ideas, we’re sure.
Whether they’ll ever, literally, take off, though, is another story. At this point, we wonder whether this couldn’t be the issue to derail Putin’s hegemonic prestige among Russians. After all, they too had a dream to fly up high and live in the stars, just like we did, or thought we did, one day, long ago.DON’T THEY LOVE THEIR CHILDREN TOO?
So maybe we could go on a limb, here, and opt to believe that not even a moody and unpredictable leader such as the former KGB chief would want to mess with deep-seated desires of his people. And that his threat to slam the door of the Space Station to those he doesn’t like, is just his playing for the bleaches.Perhaps it’s just an attempt to get the U.S. off its high horse and phony righteousness – we all know it’s all about gas and oil and all those miserable commodities, anyway – and once that happens, we’ll be all allowed to dream of reaching for the galaxies again. Not that we’d bet a discarded fuel tank on it, though.
Nevertheless, we can’t abdicate of our right to be naive and believe a thing or two about the will of the people. After all, even the celebrated space race was about weapons at first, and it would’ve remained so, if it was up to governments and rulers and the Cold War and deranged thoughts of world domination.
Except that there were enough visionaries from its onset, who chose to make it all about something else entirely. And once we saw the world from above, through their eyes, we chose that too. It stopped being a race and it became a bridge to another day of our species, this time outfitted to live out there.
This can’t be it, we say. Neither Putin, nor anyone else can get in the way of such an enormous dream-maker engine, such an incandescent spark to excel, such a transcendental counterpart to that other side of our nature, the one nature itself can’t wait to get rid of, so the planet can survive.
If the U.S., with all its might, is riding its whole space program on the coat tails of the once powerful, now just plain antiquated, Russian rockets, we may as well ride on a constellation of fireflies, if necessary, so to prove that we belong as much out there, floating, as down here, (deep) dreaming.
_________Read Also:* Space Odor* Up, Up and Away* The Last Apollo* The Red Chronicles

WILD HORSES

Harrowing Ride

Audio Portrait

East Village in the 80s through my answering machine. Greeting messages, friendly voices, a recorded ecstasy and many tongues were left on tape for me to remember. Now I'm sharing it all with you. Enjoy it.

World Cup
in S.Africa.
Remember?

Joyce's 'Ulysses'
as Graphic Novel

The illustration above is one of the plates of "Ulysses 'Seen,'" a high quality graphic adaptation by Robert Berry of James Joyce's masterpiece "Ulysses."
For those who never got around to read the long, uninterrupted, controversial June 16, 1904, conversation by Molly Bloom, Stephen Dedalus and others, that the great Irishman envisioned in Dublin, you won't have a better chance to do it.
And for those already familiar with the book form, it's another opportunity to appreciate this enduring work of literature through the eyes of a contemporary artist.
In either case, a few pints of Guinness to go along with it are absolutely optional.

EPITAPH

"Alone we are born, and die alone;
Yet see the red-gold cirrus
Over snow-mountain shine.
Upon the upland road
Ride easy, stranger:
Surrender to the sky
Your heart of anger."

FALSE ALARM

Desmodus

The Artist

Father & Son

Fireball Over Midwest Skies

COLL POLL

The Numbers Are In

Voting stations are closed at this time. The final tally was 13 votes in favor of Coll getting a cellphone and two against it.

MAY 19th IS COLL'S BIRTHDAY & HE WON!

This decision is final. Thank you all for participating. Coll's most heartfelt gratitude goes for the kind souls who voted in favor. For the two heartless hacks who were against it (you know who you are), a SWAP team graciously volunteered to pay you a visit first thing tomorrow morning. Stop by the front desk to request a waiver to present to your teacher, boss or dominatrix. Call your mother. Enroll in a charitable cause. Volunteer at a Soup Kitchen. Run to raise funds for Aids. This is our last broadcast. Please tune in for future promotions. This tape will self-destroy in five seconds. No further ado will come out of nothing. (5/19/2010)

MOTION

CLUTCH

Off-Key Note

Writings, pictures, videos, comments & more, edited by a writer, musician and world citizen living in downtown
New York City.
Acting gigs, a few screenplays and endless clashes with reality.
Brazilian by birth, multilingual by chance, cash strapped as usual.
Agnostic but partial to great soccer. Unmoved by sunsets, campaign speeches, the religious pull or any sure bet.Poor vision and lower back pain. A bottomless pit for a navel. Blue, cats, 9, left, heat and outer space.
Common ground needs not to apply. Not accepting advice at this time.

Naked City

“In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and peace – and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock.”

Slideshow

LAST WORDS

* - "Let's do it."GARY GILMORE, executed by firing squad in Jan. 17, 1977, by the State of Utah, for murdering a model clerk. He was the last person to be executed in the U.S. in that fashion until June 18, 2010, when Ronnie Lee Gardner was shot to death also by Utah.

Norman Mailer wrote "The Executioner's Song," which he called a "true story," based on the relationship he established with Gilmore, a confessed killer, and the state of affairs of the U.S. in the 1970s. The book doesn't shy away from the horrific facts surrounding his murderous spree, but in a way it tones them down and shifts the focus to the society's possible role as a fertile ground for such deviant behavior.